We present a set of experiments investigating how English- and Japanese-speaking children interpret Measure Phrase comparatives. We show that despite overt cues to the comparative interpretation, children representing both languages diverge from their adult counterparts in that they access a non-adult-like ‘absolute measurement’ interpretation. We propose to account for their response pattern by appealing to proposals by Svenonius and Kennedy and Sawada and Grano that Meas in the head of the DegP, which houses the differential, selects for an absolute minimal (...) value: zero. We argue that young children appeal to this absolute zero minimum in lieu of the correct derived standard, and must learn to override this value by appealing to the context to set the standard of comparison when interpretation requires them to do so. (shrink)

This article proposes a methodological schema for engaging in a productive discussion of ethical issues regarding human brain organoids, which are three-dimensional cortical neural tissues created using human pluripotent stem cells. Although moral consideration of HBOs significantly involves the possibility that they have consciousness, there is no widely accepted procedure to determine whether HBOs are conscious. Given that this is the case, it has been argued that we should adopt a precautionary principle about consciousness according to which, if we are (...) not certain whether HBOs have consciousness—and where treating HBOs as not having consciousness may cause harm to them—we should proceed as if they do have consciousness. This article emphasizes a methodological advantage of adopting the precautionary principle: it enables us to sidestep the question of whether HBOs have consciousness and, instead, directly address the question of what kinds of conscious experiences HBOs can have, where the what-kind-question is more tractable than the whether-question. By addressing the what-kind-question, we will be able to examine how much moral consideration HBOs deserve. With this in mind, this article confronts the what-kind-question with the assistance of experimental studies of consciousness and suggests an ethical framework which supports restricting the creation and use of HBOs in bioscience. (shrink)

Does consciousness have non-instrumental aesthetic value? This paper answers this question affirmatively by arguing that consciousness is sublime. The argument consists of three premises. (1) An awe experience of an object provides prima facie justification to believe that the object is sublime. (2) I have an awe experience about consciousness through introspecting three features of consciousness, namely the mystery of consciousness, the connection between consciousness and well-being, and the phenomenological complexity of consciousness. (3) There is no good defeater of the (...) justificatory force of my feeling of awe for the sublime of consciousness. To defend the third premise, I argue against two potential defeaters: The first is that most people do not regard consciousness as sublime. The second is that there do not seem to be physical properties that can ground the sublimity of consciousness. I conclude by emphasizing an important ethical implication of the thesis that consciousness is sublime, namely that it explains why even conscious subjects who cannot have valenced experiences deserve moral consideration. (shrink)

The aesthetic tradition has identified as paradigmatically sublime such objects as imposing mountains and intense storms, as well as monumental art. But the tradition also acknowledges less paradigmatic cases, including sometimes mathematical structures or abstract concepts. In this paper, we argue that there is also a case for considering phenomenal consciousness—the experiential quality of subjective awareness—as a sublime phenomenon. One appreciates this, we argue, when one is struck by (fitting) awe upon contemplating (a) the perplexing existence of something like phenomenal (...) consciousness in an otherwise completely material universe and (b) the role of consciousness in injecting meaning and value in an otherwise brutally factual reality. (shrink)

Naïve realists hold that the phenomenology of veridical perceptual experience is in part constituted by environmental objects that the subject is perceiving. Although naïve realism is well-motivated by considering the cognitive and epistemic roles of the phenomenology of veridical perceptual experience, it is considered difficult to explain hallucinatory and imaginative experiences. This paper provides three arguments to address these explanatory problems systematically on behalf of naïve realism. First, I argue that the imagination view of hallucination (IH), which states that hallucinations (...) are involuntary sensory imagination, can be applied to total and neutrally matching hallucinations. Second, I argue for the conjunction of IH and the representational view of imagination (RI), according to which sensory imagination (including hallucination) is representational (shortly RIH). Third, I argue that naïve realism can coherently be integrated with RIH. I finally present an integrative model of perception, imagination and hallucination from the perspective of the combination of naïve realism and RIH. (shrink)

This paper aims to uncover where the disagreement between illusionism and anti-illusionism about phenomenal consciousness lies fundamentally. While illusionists claim that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, many philosophers of mind regard illusionism as ridiculous, stating that the existence of phenomenal consciousness cannot be reasonably doubted. The question is, why does such a radical disagreement occur? To address this question, I list various characterisations of the term “phenomenal consciousness”: (1) the what-it-is-like locution, (2) inner ostension, (3) thought experiments such as philosophical (...) zombies, inverted qualia and Mary’s room, (4) scientific knowledge about secondary properties, (5) theoretical properties such as being ineffable and being intrinsic, and (6) appearance/reality collapse. Then I examine whether each characterization provides (i) a dubitable sense of phenomenal consciousness in which the existence of phenomenal consciousness can be reasonably doubted, (ii) an indubitable sense in which its existence cannot be reasonably doubted, or (iii) a gray sense in which it is controversial whether its existence can be reasonably doubted. By doing so, I show that there is no single sense of phenomenal consciousness in which illusionists and anti-illusionists disagree whether the existence of phenomenal consciousness can be reasonably doubted. I conclude that the disagreement between illusionists and anti-illusionists is fundamentally terminological: while illusionists adopt a dubitable sense of phenomenal consciousness, anti-illusionists adopt an indubitable sense of phenomenal consciousness. Because of the extreme vagueness and ambiguity of the term “phenomenal consciousness”, illusionists and anti-illusionists fail to see that they talk about different senses of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

There are many theories of the functions of consciousness. How these theories relate to each other, how we should assess them, and whether any integration of them is possible are all issues that remain unclear. To contribute to a solution, this paper offers a conceptual framework to clarify the theories of the functions of consciousness. This framework consists of three dimensions: (i) target, (ii) explanatory order, and (iii) necessity/sufficiency. The first dimension, target, clarifies each theory in terms of the kind (...) of consciousness it targets. The second dimension, explanatory order, clarifies each theory in terms of how it conceives of the explanatory relation between consciousness and function. The third dimension, necessity/sufficiency, clarifies each theory in terms of the necessity/sufficiency relation posited between consciousness and function. We demonstrate the usefulness of this framework by applying it to some existing scientific and philosophical theories of the functions of consciousness. (shrink)

The electron double-slit interference is re-examined from the point of view of temporal topos. Temporal topos (or t-topos) is an abstract algebraic (categorical) method using the theory of sheaves. A brief introduction to t-topos is given. When the structural foundation for describing particles is based on t-topos, the particle-wave duality of electron is a natural consequence. A presheaf associated with the electron represents both particle-like and wave-like properties depending upon whether an object in the site (t-site) is specified (particle-like) or (...) not (wave-like). It is shown that the localization of the electron at one of the slits is equivalent to choosing a particular object in the t-site and that the electron behaves as a wave when it passes through a double-slit because there are more than one object in the t-site. Also, the single-slit diffraction is interpreted as a result of the possibility of many different ways of factoring a morphism between two objects. (shrink)

江戸派国学は、江戸下町文化が大きく花開いた19世紀初頭の化政期に、町人たちを主体に形成された。村田春海・加藤千蔭らの江戸派国学を、“春満‐真淵‐宣長”の国学に連なる系譜に位置づけた、国学史上劃期的名著 の復刻。.

This paper proposes a classificatory framework for disjunctivism about the phenomenology of visual perceptual experience. Disjunctivism of this sort is typically divided into positive and negative disjunctivism. This distinction successfully reflects the disagreement amongst disjunctivists regarding the explanatory status of the introspective indiscriminability of veridical perception and hallucination. However, it is unsatisfactory in two respects. First, it cannot accommodate eliminativism about the phenomenology of hallucination. Second, the class of positive disjunctivism is too coarse-grained to provide an informative overview of the (...) current dialectical landscape. Given this, I propose a classificatory framework which preserves the positive-negative distinction, but which also includes the distinction between eliminativism and non-eliminativism, as well as a distinction between two subclasses of positive disjunctivism. In describing each class in detail, I specify who takes up each position in the existing literature, and demonstrate that this classificatory framework can disambiguate some existing disjunctivist views. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to characterize aesthetic introspection as a starting point for further substantial exploration of its nature. I distinguish three types of aesthetic introspection based on their roles. Type-1 aesthetic introspection contributes to the formation of aesthetic judgement based on aesthetic perception. Type-2 aesthetic introspection provides a second-order aesthetic experience representing a conscious experience as having aesthetic properties. Type-3 aesthetic introspection produces an aesthetic judgment about aesthetic experiences. In arguing for the importance of every type of (...) aesthetic introspection, I present two new concepts of aesthetics: consciousness aesthetics and the art of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper argues for the conjunctive thesis of naïve realism and phenomenal intentionalism about perceptual experiences. Naïve realism holds that the phenomenology of veridical perceptual experience is constituted by environmental objects that the subject perceives. Phenomenal intentionalism about perceptual experience states that perceptual experience has intentionality in virtue of its phenomenology. I first argue that naïve realism is not incompatible with phenomenal intentionalism. I then argue that phenomenal intentionalists can handle two objections to it by adopting naïve realism: the first (...) objection is that phenomenal intentionalism cannot explain how a veridical perceptual experience is directed at a particular object rather than any other object of the same kind. The second objection is that phenomenal intentionalism cannot explain how a perceptual experience is directed at a type of external object rather than other types of objects without appealing to a resemblance relation between a perceptual experience and an external object, which is considered to be problematic. (shrink)

This article aims to present a map of consciousness studies, which consists of a list of fundamental questions about consciousness and existing approaches to them. The question list includes five fundamental categories: Definitional, Phenomenological, Epistemological, Ontological, and Axiological. Each fundamental category is divided into more determinate questions. Existing approaches to each question are also classified into a few groups, presenting principal researchers who take each kind of approach. In the final section, I demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed map of (...) consciousness studies by applying it to examine the integrated information theory and the global workspace theory of consciousness. (shrink)

In the target article, Zilio and Lavazza (2023) persuasively argue that an ontological analysis of human cerebral organoids (HCOs) is necessary to identify their moral status. Although they also pr...

This paper aims to reveal the source of the dispute between naive realism and intentionalism. To accomplish this task, it examines Adam Pautz’s challenge to naive realism, according to which a naive intuition about visual phenomenology, which is the only workable case for naive realism, is problematic. It argues that naive realists can address the challenge from Pautz by rejecting his assumption that naive realists and intentionalists agree on the nominal definition of visual phenomenology. The paper then argues that the (...) reason naive realists want to preserve the naive intuition is its irresistibility rather than its reliability. Given this, it concludes that the disagreement between naive realism and intentionalism is rooted in what philosophical projects they tackle. Naive realists are engaged in the philosophical project of delineating a coherent view of the actual world in which the irresistible naive intuition can be true; the intentionalist philosophical project differs from it. (shrink)

Hobbes's unusual religious views in his classical work, Leviathan, are often seen as a product of his attempt to reconcile Christianity with his philosophical materialism. Yet given Hobbes's materialistic view in his earlier works too, this explanatory framework alone is not sufficient for grasping distinctive features of Leviathan. This article remedies this lacuna by paying close attention to an understudied aspect of the development of Hobbes's religious theory from The Elements of Law to Leviathan: his treatment of the supernatural and, (...) particularly, of matters of faith known by supernatural revelation as opposed to natural reason. I argue that over time Hobbes developed an epistemological analysis of supernatural revelation and refined his argument about the sense in which matters of faith are supernatural and about the extent to which they are found in the Bible. It was not materialism per se but the more sophisticated analysis of the supernatural in Leviathan that enabled Hobbes to admit the sphere of the supernatural to a much smaller extent than in De Cive and to discuss in detail what he sees as a matter of faith and beyond the scope of philosophy in De Cive. (shrink)

In defence of naïve realism, Fish has advocated an eliminativist view of hallucination, according to which hallucinations lack visual phenomenology. Logue, and Dokic and Martin, respectively, have developed the eliminativist view in different manners. Logue claims that hallucination is a non-phenomenal, perceptual representational state. Dokic and Martin maintain that hallucinations consist in the confusion of monitoring mechanisms, which generates an affective feeling in the hallucinating subject. This paper aims to critically examine these views of hallucination. By doing so, I shall (...) point out what theoretical requirements are imposed on naïve realists who characterize hallucinations as non-visual-sensory phenomena. (shrink)

The subjective features of psychological phenomena have been studied intensively in experimental science in recent years. Although various methods have been proposed to identify subjective features of psychological phenomena, there are elusive subjective features such as the spatiotemporal structure of experience, which are difficult to capture without some additional methodological tools. We propose a new experimental method to address this challenge, which we call the contrast-based experimental phenomenological method (CEP). CEP proceeds in four steps: (i) front-loading phenomenology, (ii) online second-personal (...) interview, (iii) questionnaire survey, and (iv) hypotheses testing. It differs from other experimental phenomenological methods in that it takes advantage of phenomenal contrasts in collecting phenomenological data. In this paper, we verify the validity and productivity of this method by applying it to binocular rivalry (BR). The study contributes to empirical research on BR in three respects. First, it provides additional evidence for existing propositions about the subjective features of BR: e.g. the proposition that the temporal dynamics of the experience depend upon subject-dependent parameters such as attentional change. Second, it deepens our understanding of the spatiotemporal structures of the transition phase of BR. Third, it elicits new research questions about depth experience and individual differences in BR. The presence of such contributions demonstrates the validity and productivity of CEP. (shrink)

Si la question de la science divine dans le catholicisme et le protestantisme réformé n’a cessé d’attirer l’attention des historiens de la philosophie, la position de l’orthodoxie luthérienne est restée relativement méconnue. Or, le Systema Locorum Theologicorum d’Abraham Calov, professeur à Wittenberg, connu également comme Schulphilosoph, se distingue par sa profondeur et sa finesse parmi les ouvrages luthériens. Cet article étudie systématiquement son traitement de l’omniscience divine afin de mettre en évidence le caractère polémique attribué à cette notion. En situant (...) le texte dans le contexte historique et doctrinal de l’époque, on tâchera d’éclairer les problématiques principales du théologien vers la moitié de l’âge classique, ainsi que sa position vis-à-vis de certains auteurs majeurs. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate processes involving iterative information updating due to van Benthem (Int Game Theory Rev 9: 13—45, 2007), who characterized existent game-theoretic solution concepts by such processes in the framework of Plaza's public announcement logic. We refine this approach and clarify the relationship between stable strategies and information update processes. After extending Plaza's logic, we then derive the conditions under which a stable outcome is determined independently of the order of the iterative information updates. This result gives (...) an epistemic foundation for the order independence of iterated elimination of disadvantageous strategies. (shrink)

This paper argues that naïve realism has an epistemic advantage over other rival views. The argument consists of two steps. First, I argue that the phenomenology of veridical visual experience plays an indispensable role in explaining how we can refer to the experience as a justificatory reason for a demonstrative judgment. Second, I argue that only naïve realism can coherently allow a veridical visual experience to be used as a factive reason.

Since the collapse of the bubble economy at the beginning of the 1990s, Japan has been in secular stagnation. Despite the stagnant economic conditions, the rate of profit has been rising, not falling. The coexistence of the rise in profitability and prolonged economic stagnation is a manifestation of the fundamental contradiction of present-day Japanese capitalism. Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF) provides a consistent explanation regarding the paradoxical situation in Japan characterised not by (...) a falling but a rising rate of profit. Meanwhile, this paper discusses the Monopoly Capitalism school, which has studied capitalist behaviour concerning productive investment and changes in the form of capitalist competition at the monopoly stage of capitalism. While the school’s negation of the LTRPF is unacceptable, their notions may provide useful explanations as to why the rate of profit has risen under secular stagnation in Japan. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to elucidate Husserl’s later phenomenological approach to the unconscious as a limit problem of phenomenology. Husserl had encountered the kind of problem as the unconscious earlier on and it continued to come up throughout his work. There are references to the unconscious in Ideas II and in the Analyses Concerning Passive Synthesis, and even in early lectures. Nonetheless, the unconscious as a severe problem of Husserl’s phenomenology emerged only in his mature phase. In this paper, (...) I first discuss how Husserl treats the unconscious in relation to affection in Analyses Concerning Passive Synthesis, in order to shed light on the process of how the unconscious is problematized in phenomenology. Then, I rely on his later manuscripts on the unconscious in Husserliana XLII, where Husserl deals with the unconscious in relation to waking and sleeping. At the end, I explain how Husserl explores the multi-layered structure of consciousness as a result of his treatment of the unconscious as limit problem of phenomenology. (shrink)

Smithies defends the phenomenal sufficiency thesis, according to which every perceptual experience provides immediate, defeasible justification to believe some content in virtue of its phenomenal character alone. This commentary challenges this thesis by presenting two kinds of knowledge, the possession of which seems necessary for perceptual justification.